Indian Point and the Mystery of The Missing Bolts
/ Grayson Webb
Missing bolts and “nuclear reactor” are words one generally does not want in the same sentence. However, when more than one quarter of the bolts inside an atomic reactor core go missing, the risk and concern multiply. Listen to this breaking news Fairewinds Energy Education podcast of a formal press conference hosted by Friends of the Earth regarding its Emergency Petition to the Nuclear Regulatory Commission to Prohibit Restart of Indian Point Unit 2 and Inspect Indian Point Unit 3.
In this press conference you’ll hear Damon Moglen, Sr. Strategic Advisor with Friends of the Earth, Attorney Richard Ayers, Founder of the the Ayers Law Group, Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer with Fairewinds Associates, and David Freeman, former chair of the NY Power Authority, the prior owner of Indian Point Unit 3, and an advisor to Friends of the Earth.
Listen
Reports
Filed with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission: Friends of the Earth's Emergency Petition to Prohibit Restart of Indian Point Unit 2 and Inspect Indian Point Unit 3, May 24, 2016, Friends of the Earth
The Mystery of the Missing Bolts: New York City's Stricken Indian Nuclear Plant, May 24, 2016, Friends of the Earth and Fairewinds Associates
Transcript
English
MG: Hi, I’m Maggie Gundersen, founder of Fairewinds Energy Education. And today you’re listening to a breaking news Fairewinds podcast of a formal press conference hosted by Friends of the Earth. Welcome to this breaking news event. In this press conference, you’ll hear Damon Moglen (:34), senior strategic advisor with Friends of the Earth, Attorney Richard Ayres, founder of the Ayres Law Group, and Arnie Gundersen, Chief Engineer with Fairewinds Associates, and David Freeman, former Chair of the New York Power Authority, the prior owner of Indian Point Unit 3, and an advisor to Friends of the Earth.
Emcee: Good day, everyone and welcome to today’s Friends of the Earth Indian Point telephonic press conference. At this time, all participants are in listening mode. Later on, you’ll have the opportunity to ask questions during the question-and-answer session. You may register to ask a question at any time by pressing the star and 1 on your touchtone phone. You may withdraw yourself from the queue by pressing the pound key. Please note this call may be recorded. I’ll be standing by if you need any assistance. It’s now my pleasure to turn today’s program over to Mr. Damon Moglen. Please go ahead, sir.
DM: Thank you. Good morning. Thank you for attending this Friends of the Earth telepress conference on the dramatic bolt failure at the Indian Point nuclear reactors outside of New York City. This is Damon Moglen. I’m the Senior Strategic Advisor for Friends of the Earth, and I coordinate the organization’s campaigns on nuclear power issues. I have worked on issues relating to nuclear power and nuclear proliferation for more than 30 years. Let me introduce the speakers you will be hearing from today. First off will be our attorney, Richard Ayres of the Ayres Legal Group, who has filed today on our behalf an emergency petition with the Commissioner of the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. Richard Ayres is among the nation’s most knowledgeable and well-respected environmental attorneys. Since 1970, he has helped shape and implement many of the country’s core environmental policies, including the Clean Air Act. Mr. Ayres’ work has included representing clients before federal courts, including the Supreme Court, the NRC, the EPA, the U.S. Congress and state agencies and courts. Our second speaker will be the nuclear engineer, Arnie Gundersen, of Fairewinds Associates, who is the lead technical author of the report we are releasing today. Arnie Gundersen has more than 40 years of nuclear power engineering experience. He attended the Rensselaer Polytechnic Institute, where he earned his bachelors degree, while also becoming the recipient of a prestigious Atomic Energy Commission Fellowship for his masters degree in nuclear engineering. Arnie holds a nuclear safety patent, was a licensed reactor operator, and is a former nuclear industry senior vice president. During his nuclear power industry career, Arnie also managed and coordinated projects at 70 nuclear power plants in the United States. Our last speaker will be S. David Freeman, the former CEO of the New York Power Authority – NYPA – and a man who had personal responsibility for the oversight of Unit 3 reactor at Indian Point. Dave now serves as a senior advisor for Friends of the Earth. Mr. Freeman has more than four decades of experience directing federal, regional and local energy policies. He was appointed chairman of the Tennessee Valley Authority by Jimmy Carter in 1977. Subsequently, Dave served for two decades as general manager of several large public utilities or power agencies, including the New York Power Authority in the mid-1990’s, the Los Angeles Department of Water & Power, and the Sacramental Municipal Utility District. Dave is a renowned expert on clean energy efficiency and the risks of nuclear power. He holds a BS in civil engineering from Georgia Tech and an LLD from the University of Tennessee. I want to get to our speakers in a moment, but would like to say a few words about why we are here today. The situation we bring to you is actually very simple. A complicated and potentially quite dangerous machine is broken. The question is whether or not we will find out why and how it broke before the reactor is returned to operation. Will profits take precedence over safety? Let me emphasis the bolt failure at Indian Point involving degradation or loss of more than 25 percent of the bolts which are a critical part of the reactor unit 2’s core cooling system, is a very serious problem. In fact, we believe the failure of these bolts is orders of magnitude beyond that seen in any other reactor in the world. It’s unprecedented. Failure of these bolts in the plates they hold, which channel cooling water to the reactor core could lead in an emergency to a failure of the cooling system and a meltdown of the reactor core, as occurred at Fukushima. This would send a plume of radioactivity somewhere out over the nearly 20 million people who live within 50 miles of the Entergy reactors. If the wind were blowing in that direction, the plume could be over Times Square in 90 minutes. There would be no time for evacuation; in fact, as we New Yorkers all know, if there was a disaster at Indian Point, there would be no way to evacuate the millions of people trapped under the radiation in New York City and West Chester. We believe that the bolt problem must be treated as a top safety priority by the nuclear regulatory authority. But the staff has not acted and has instead, at least so far, left it to Entergy to propose and start making repairs even before they have completed a full analysis of the problem on which to base the repairs. Because Entergy says they intend to bring Indian Point back on line in June, we believe it is critically important that the NRC intervene and take charge. They need to assure that a full root cause analysis is done, and that it forms the basis of any repairs that are made and that the NRC certifies that the plant is safe to run. We are also asking the Agency immediately instruct Entergy to bring reactor unit 3 off line so that the twin reactor can be immediately inspected to ascertain if it has the same problem. Friends of the Earth started in 1969 and began as an organization working on nuclear safety. Never in our more than 45 years have we filed such an emergency petition with the NRC. We believe that this is a major safety issue and we demand that the federal safety regulators intervene. Let me now turn to our attorney, Mr. Richard Ayres.
RA: Good morning, everyone. I’m Richard Ayres. This morning, my firm filed on behalf of Friends of the Earth, a petition with the Nuclear Regulatory Commission for emergency action to assure that the two reactors at Indian Point, New York, are safe to operate. This filing is not taken lightly. A release of radiation at Indian Point, as you’ve heard, could affect nearly 20 million people and could potentially render our nation’s largest city uninhabitable. The purpose of the petition filed by Friends of the Earth is to prevent a hasty restart of Indian Point 2 until the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission is sure it’s safe to operate. Under the Atomic Energy Act, the NRC has the task of protecting the health and safety of the people of the New York City area. The safety of the plant is in question because it has been learned from new inspection techniques that the bolts that hold internal baffles together in unit 2 are failing at a rate never before experienced. An inspection by Entergy, the owner and operator, shows that more than one-fourth of the baffled former bolts have become compromised and/or failed. No other nuclear unit has ever experienced more than a 10 percent failure rate. The effects of these failures are potentially catastrophic and will be described further by Mr. Gundersen. In the case of Indian Point, located within 50 miles of tens of millions of people, there is no room for error. We believe the increased risk demands that the U.S. Nuclear Regulatory Commission step in to assure safety. Why? Because Entergy, the private company that owns and operates Indian Point, cannot be counted on to protect the health and welfare of New Yorkers. Entergy had to be forced to investigate the bolt failures by New York Attorney General Eric Schneiderman (9:09). Entergy continues to plan to restart unit 2 in June whether or not it’s completed a root cause analysis to find out why the bolts are failing. Entergy also plans to continue running unit 3 for another year before finding out how many bolts have failed in that unit. Entergy is a private company, not a utility regulated by New York State. Its only corporate interest is making money for its shareholders. The duty to make energy a good citizen falls entirely on the Nuclear Regulatory Commission. To protect the public interest, therefore, the Nuclear Regulatory Commission must step in to assure that both units are safe to operate. To date, the Commission has simply not become involved. In its petition, the Friends of the Earth asked the Commission to take two major actions on an emergency basis. First, we asked the Commission to issue an emergency order preventing Entergy from restarting unit 2 until the NRC is satisfied that it knows the root cause of the bolt failures, and until the NRC determines that unit 2 is safe to operate. Second, we asked the Commission to issue an additional emergency order to prevent continued operation of unit 3 until it has been inspected, the root cause of any bolt degradation is determined, and the NRC is satisfied the unit is safe to operate. Now the Commission unquestionably has the authority to take these steps. It has granted emergency relief in response to such petitions on a number of occasions in the past. Examples are at pages 13 and 14 of our petition. Likewise, the Commission has on several occasions in recent years required licensees to provide the NRC with analysis and await Commission approval before operating troubled plants. Examples of that are on pages 12 and 13. We ask and expect the Commission to consider these emergency requests on an expedited basis.
Emcee: Thank you, Mr. Ayres. Our next speaker will be Arnie Gundersen. Arnie.
AG: (11:42) Hi. Arnie Gundersen, the Chief Engineer at Fairewinds Associates up in Burlington, Vermont. If you’re taking notes, it’s Gundersen – has an “e” – s-e-n – and Fairewinds has an “e” in the middle of it. Unfortunately, during my 44-year career, I’ve witnessed five major atomic reactor meltdowns, beginning with Three Mile Island and including Chernobyl and Fukushima Daiichi. And since the beginning of the 21st Century, I’ve witnessed two near calamities. The first was in 2002 at Davis Bessie in Ohio; and the second is happening right now with the mishap at Indian Point Unit 2 with the failure of 227 damaged and missing bolts that are essential to the safe operation of that atomic reactor core. As Dick said, more than a quarter of these critical bolts in the core are missing. This is the largest number of failed bolts ever found in any atomic reactor anywhere in the world. Both Indian Point 2 and its almost identical sister reactor produce slightly more than 1,100 megawatts of electric power each. To adequately visualize what this means, let’s look at the picture provided to you on page 4 of the technical handout. Trapped inside that 12-foot-high by 12-foot-wide reactor core is the energy equal to 4-1/2 million horsepower. Envision almost 4-1/2 million horses stampeding across a prairie and you’ll realize how much power must be controlled within each atomic reactor core. The core baffle that is held in place by slightly more than 800 bolts surrounds the atomic fuel. 227 of those bolts are seriously damaged or missing entirely. The core baffle acts like a cattle chute and it channels a quarter of a million gallons of water at 550 degrees. That’s the energy equivalent of 4-1/2 million horses in a uniform direction that’s absolutely critical to the safe operation to maintain control of the Indian Point reactor. The failure of more than a quarter of the bolts means that the baffle directing these 440 million (sic) stampeding horses – 4.4 million stampeding horses – is severely weakened and in jeopardy of failing to cool the atoms colliding inside. The near failure of the baffle means that a nuclear nightmare was just narrowly avoided. If the baffle had failed – see picture on page 5 of the handout – cooling water could have bypassed the atomic reactor core, leaving the core with no method to cool it and causing a meltdown. Simply put, it’s impossible to cool the nuclear fuel if the baffle plate fails. In 1966, the loose parts from the Fermi I nuclear reactor caused a piece of sheet metal to break loose and plug the nuclear reactor fuel, creating a partial meltdown, during which someone in the control room uttered, “We almost lost Detroit.” The failure of the baffle plate on Indian Point 2 would create a much worse disaster, and New York City is only 26 miles away. In 2012, Friends of the Earth retained Fairewinds Associates to evaluate radiation leaks of the steam generators tubes at the San Onofre nuclear reactors. The Nuclear Regulatory Commission had already assigned a special 14-person augmented inspection team and issued a confirmatory action letter requiring NRC approval of the restart of the San Onofre after a root cause analysis was completed. Due to the near miss at Indian Point unit 2, which is 100 to 1,000 times more dangerous than that which existed at San Onofre, Friends of the Earth is requesting this emergency petition to the NRC to both keep Indian Point 2 and 3 shut down until the ultimate root cause analysis has been completed. Well, what is an ultimate root cause analysis? Simply put, it’s a thorough, time-consuming analysis that examines every possible cause of bolt damage and destruction. Replacing the damaged bolts prior to an ultimate root cause analysis may put significant stress on the reactor, causing a meltdown in the future. Focusing on Indian Point’s immediate return to power production limits dedicated scientific inquiry and endangers the health of millions of people living nearby. By insisting that Indian Point 2 replace its bolts prior to analyzing the ultimate root cause of the bolt failures and by allowing Indian Point 3 to continue operating, speaks to a failed safety culture within Entergy. According to the NRC database, currently the three worst performing atomic reactors in the U.S. are owned by Entergy. And now we add to that list Entergy’s Indian Point Unit 2. Entergy is rushing to fix an unknown failure so as to supply electricity during the lucrative summer peak market. And its almost identical sister plant continues to operate without any safety evaluation or risk assessment. After examining the evidence available to me, it’s my professional enduring opinion that both Indian Point atomic reactors should be shut down and remain so until an ultimate root cause evaluation is completed and the defects are repaired – if a repair is even possible. Quite simply, the lack of evaluation possibility for Manhattan and the surrounding New York area aren’t worth the risk for Entergy’s corporate profits. Thanks.
Emcee: Thank you, Arnie. Our next and final speaker is S. David Freeman. Dave.
DF: I view this situation from a somewhat different perspective than my fellow colleagues here. I had the personal responsibility in late ’93, ’94 and ’95 for the operation of Indian Point 3. And I kept that plant shut down for 2-1/2 years, not because the reactors were broken as they are now, but because employees were not following the rules of the NRC with sufficient correctness to satisfy us. Now there was a big difference. I was the head of a nonprofit organization – the New York Power Authority – and I did not have the pressure of stockholders and making profits. And so we were able to put safety first and we did so. And what is so alarming about the situation that we have right here is that the company that is in charge of the plant now is not even regulated. In California, at least the utilities that operate the nuclear plant have a cost-plus (?19:21) deal with the regulator. And they could – if the plant didn’t run, they still got their money. If they made investments in safety, they made a return on it. Here we have a company that has a single-minded objective: making money. And so they don’t have a conflict of interest. They have a serious interest in running this plant this summer, because if they don’t run it, they don’t get any money. And having been in the position of CEO, the people in that plant, they will come to you and tell you it’s safe – you know why? – because they really believe it’s safe. Because they work there. It’s almost like somebody that smokes cigarettes and doesn’t believe they’re going to get cancer. There’s just such a pressure on the people involved to say it’s okay because of their job. That’s the reason we have a Nuclear Regulatory Commission, which is to protect the public against the monetary incentives of a company like this that just wants to run the plant and doesn’t have the public safety as their first priority. And that is why it is absolutely crucial that the NRC take charge here and that it is the NRC that decided – and that it permits experts like Mr. Gundersen and others to present evidence. Right now, this whole thing is hidden behind a nuclear curtain where nobody really knows what’s going on except the private company who’s just desperately trying to get the plant back up. I would also want to comment that having run that plant, we knew that there was no evacuation plan. There isn’t one. You can’t get the 6 to 10 million people in that area out of there in an accident. It’s just not possible. The other point that needs to be made is this place is running outside of its license. Its license expired for one unit 3 years ago; another one a year ago. Nobody in their right mind would dream of building a nuclear power plant 25, 35 miles from New York City. Their license has expired. A Nuclear Regulatory Commission asserting the public interest would deny them a license extension. This plant needs to be shut down in the name of common sense.
Emcee: All right. Thank you, Mr. Freeman. I’d like to now turn to questions and answers. Roxanna, the operator, is going to be facilitating that process. Roxanna, please.
Roxanna: At this time, if you’d like to ask a question, please press the star and 1 on your touchtone telephone. You may withdraw your question at any time by pressing the pound key. Once again, to ask a question please press the star and one on your touchtone telephone. And we’ll pause for a brief moment to allow questions to queue. And we’ll take our first question from Jennifer Pelz (22:31) with the Associated Press. Please go ahead.
JP: Hi, everybody. I wondered what the process is for going forward with this petition. Is there a timeframe by which the Commission has to respond? Or is it not quite as firm as that?
RA: This is Dick Ayres answering that question. Yes. There is no requirement as to the timetable for a response. The reason we’ve asked for emergency consideration is that we believe this needs to be considered right away and we, of course, are also saying that the Commission needs to give us a response before the plant would be restarted. So that would probably place a 30-to-40-day limit on how soon the Commission would have to respond.
DF: If I could just add this thought – a failure of the Commission to respond is a denial of our request. This is an emergency and if the plant is allowed to restart without Commission action, the Commission has effectively denied our request, and I think that we will very seriously consider what other legal action we wish to take.
Emcee: That second speaker was Mr. Freeman. All right, let’s go to the next question, please.
Roxanna: And we’ll take our next question from John Beers with AFP (24:14). Please go ahead.
JB: Hi there. I haven’t had a chance to go through all the documents yet, but thank you for holding the call. What has been the reaction so far of other people like, for example, the governor of New York or the attorney general to what you’re saying about this problem at Indian Point?
DF: (24:42) This is Dave Freeman. The governor of New York has been on record asking that the plant be shut down ever since he was Attorney General, and including recently when he’s governor. So he has been very vigorous in asking the NRC to take action and the company to shut the plant down, and many others in the state have been making the same request for a number of years. There’s opposition to granting them another 20-year license extension that’s undertaken – led by the Attorney General and many NGO’s in the state. Frankly, the opposition to Indian Point goes all the way back to 1994. I encountered it when I was running the plant and for that reason, kept the plant down for 2-1/2 years.
JB: So the NRC just doesn’t see eye to eye with all these regulators – all these others?
DF: They have not been urged to do so as vigorously as we did this morning, and we have every reason and hope that they’re going to respond to our emergency petition and do their job.
JB: Where would the power come from if it’s not – say you get your wish and Indian Point is – the reactor that’s down is not brought back and the reactor that’s up is brought down – where does the power come from over the summer?
DF: The Federal Energy Regulatory Commission issued an opinion on April 20th, 2015, in which they prescribed that the New York independent system operated from the grid must maintain operating reserves of 2,620 megawatts and 1,310 of those megawatts have to be in the southeast New York area. So there is ample reserve in the system to date. As the CEO of a utility, I can just tell you that you always have to have enough reserves on hand if your large unit breaks down. And Indian Point is a large unit. So there’s no concern about power shortages. If there were, then the NYPA (?27:17) would be engaged in a massive conservation effort right now. They have ample opportunity to do – they take bids or load management bids – this is a sophisticated organization that has the power supply underway and Indian Point is not operating now, but the reserves are there. That’s the answer. And if they weren’t, we’d be having an energy efficiency and conservation program like we did in California when we had a shortage, and it worked.
DM: That speaker was Dave Freeman. This is Damon Moglen. I’d just like to add that I would encourage folks to take a look at a very important report that was commissioned by our colleagues at NRDC and Riverkeeper by Synax, which was published a couple of years ago, that goes into full detail about these surplus issues. And this is an important issue. And I’d also encourage you to take a look at that report.
AG: (28:21) Hey, Damon, may I add one thing? This is Arnie Gundersen. Indian Point 3 claims that it’s unlikely it’ll have this problem. If it shuts down now in May, it’s probably less than 30 days it could determine if it has the problem or not. If it’s clean, it could be up and running again in time for this suggested peak in July and August. If it is damaged, I’d suggest that it’s much better to be shut down rather than putting damaged – putting stress on those baffle plates. So the time to shut Indian Point down from a load standpoint is now. Let’s look.
Emcee: Right. And that was Arnie Gundersen. Can I ask for the next question?
Roxanna: And we have a follow-up question from Jennifer Pelz of the Associated Press. Please go a head.
JP: Thank you. I’m looking at the NRC blog post to which you refer in your legal papers and which concludes with the guy saying that the NRC will ensure the condition is fully understood and addressed prior to the plant returning to service. I take it you all don’t credit that. Why not?
DM: This is Damon Moglen. And I’ll take a first shot at answering that. Maybe Dick Ayres may want to add. But the bottom line is this. That blog post, which is in and of itself is kind of remarkable that the NRC is taking actions through a blog and not through any regulatory action, is I think rather misleading in that none of the kind of actual public regulatory actions that normally the NRC should be taking in a case like this one – sending in an augmented inspection team, issuing a confirmatory action letter which takes charge of the situation – none of that has been done. So what you have there is a blog post from a public relations officer at the NRC which ends with an empty reassurance that everything is okay. And no, Jennifer, I don’t think that’s enough. I don’t think that’s enough to calm concerns of the millions of people in New York who are worried about this reactor. I don’t know if Dick wants to add anything further about what we may be asking for.
RA: I’ll just add one thing, which is what we’re asking for basically is for the NRC to use the authority it has by statute to step in and make sure the plant is safe. At this point, the Commission has done really nothing to accomplish that, and obviously a blog post does not carry the force of law which the Commission has. And because it has that force, it can require the plant to be kept closed until it’s safe; it can put conditions on how it’s operated. It basically can do almost anything to make sure that the people that live within a distance of that plant are safe.
DM: Jennifer, did you have a follow-up or can we ask for another question? Okay. Why don’t we go to the next question.
Roxanna: Once again, if you’d like to ask question, it is star and 1 on your touchtone telephone and we’ll pause a brief moment to allow questions to queue. Once again, if you’d like to ask a question, it is star and 1 on your touchtone telephone. It appears we have no further questions at this time.
DM: All right. Great. Thank you all for being on this call. There are contact numbers if you want to ask any follow-up questions to any of our speakers. On behalf of Friends of the Earth, I’d like to thank you for attending this important telepress conference and for covering this extremely important safety issue.
Roxanna: This does conclude today’s conference. You may disconnect at any time and have a wonderful day.
MG: Thanks for listening to the Fairewinds Energy Education podcast. We will keep you informed.
